03 August 2011

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan
Didion's The
Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir of the year in her life after
her husband of 40 years (fellow writer John Gregory Dunne) died of sudden
cardiac death. During the months surrounding John's death, their only
daughter, Quintana, was in a hospital, in a coma, suffering from septic
shock.

Grief is common, but Didion has the uncommon trait of being detached enough that she
could dissect her grief and commit it to paper. So she was able to pick apart
the state of derangement that she found herself in. When people
think about loss and the prospect of grieving, they expect to be
inconsolable, perhaps unable to function, unreachable in a way. They do not
expect to be "literally crazy," as Didion characterized her own mental state
when she realized she was unable to throw out John's shoes,
because, well, how would he get around when he came back? That is
the sort of thing that (if you were in Didion's shoes) would seem to clearly
indicate that part of you had abandoned rationality and taken up "magical thinking", and yet, remarkably, it would go
unchallenged and possibly unrecognized unless you had explicitly articulated
it!

There is little inspirational advice for coping here; just Didion's bare and
unfiltered retelling of the event, its fallout, and the strange ideas that her derangement led her to. A very personal account, and a sad but satisfying read (especially if you recognize bits and pieces of Didion's derangement in yourself); recommended.

Disclosure

I'm a software engineer at DNAnexus, Inc. This blog represents the opinion of myself and no one else.Unless specifically noted otherwise, I do not receive free review copies of books or other products mentioned here.